Dart hits bullseye for Britain
Londoner keeps flag flying as compatriots fall in Melbourne
A gloomy day for British hopes at the Australian Open was enlivened by a late shaft of sunlight when Harriet Dart – the qualifier from north London – claimed her first overseas slam victory in a topsy-turvy finale.
Melbourne Park teemed with as much activity as the Great Barrier Reef, as the aftereffects of Monday’s rain forced 96 matches into a daily schedule that normally holds 64. This meant that Dart did not strike her final shot until just after 11pm, by which time the casualties were already piling up in front of the Lawn Tennis Association’s visiting bigwigs.
Johanna Konta, Kyle Edmund and Katie Boulter each trooped out on to court and each returned without a set to their name. Cameron Norrie fared a little better, coming within three points from victory against France’s Pierrehugues Herbert. But he faded to a five-set defeat, about half an hour before Dart’s moment of glory.
Dart is ranked No 173, and her Japanese opponent, Misaki Doi – who stands just 5ft 3in – is No82, so this was not a celebrity showdown. But one of tennis’s charms is that a well-matched tussle on the boondocks of Court 11 can be just as gripping as anything happening on Rod Laver Arena.
Dart is 23, a daughter of leafy Hampstead. She looks and sounds like the sort of woman who serves tea in vintage china, but her record over the past 12 months – in which she has entered three grand-slam qualifying events and come through them all – suggests there is real fire inside.
In Melbourne last year, Dart drew Maria Sharapova – then still close to her best – in the first round of the main draw. Scheduled to open the tournament on Rod Laver Arena, she suffered the tennis player’s ultimate nightmare – a 6-0, 6-0 double bagel – and walked off in tears. Last night, then, was a far more satisfying occasion.
“That was definitely up there,” said Dart when asked where it ranked among her favourite wins.
We could spend the next few pages discussing the ebbs and flows in Dart’s 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 victory, because it changed direction more often than a wonky satnav. She is a strong and mobile hitter off both flanks, but her second serve is so slow that her opponent is in danger of being beaten in the flight.
The key passage came after Dart had held two match points at 6-5, 40-15 in the decider, only to botch a couple of straightforward forehands as her arm tightened up. Doi then took a 5-1 lead in the super tiebreak, but Dart responded with a hot streak of her own, winning nine of the last 10 points.
“It was tricky, having the match points at 6-5,” Dart said. “She stepped it up at the beginning of the tie-break and I was really proud of myself to be able to fight back and compete.”
Her reward may well be another outing on Melbourne Park’s biggest court, as she will play Simona Halep, the 2018 runner-up here, in tomorrow’s second round.
Earlier, the fortunes of the British pack had turned sharply downward after Dan Evans’s first-day win. Prospects of anyone flying the flag in the tournament’s second week now look remote, after Konta failed to win a match at a slam for the first time since the summer of 2018.
Coming into the Australian Open, chronic knee problems had restricted Konta to just a single match in the previous 4½ months. Some players can find inspiration quickly after such a break, but she is a methodical character who needs rhythm.
She never found any against Ons Jabeur, the world No78 from Tunisia. Jabeur is a gifted shotmaker who can surprise with pace or subtlety, and players who mix their game unpredictably tend to be Konta’s least-favourite opponents. But it does not help when your serve is consistently 5-10mph short of its usual speed.
Even so, despite having lost two out of two matches during this Australian trip (the first was at the Brisbane International against Barbora Strycova), Konta was upbeat in the interview room after her 6-4, 6-2 defeat. “What was good today was my knee felt quite good,” she said. “And it was actually even better than Brisbane. That’s a very positive thing for me, especially after where I was in September.”
A little later, Edmund was outplayed by in-form Dusan Lajovic, who has arrived in Melbourne fresh from Serbia’s victory in the ATP Cup. Edmund had carried a 5-2 first-set lead over from Monday afternoon, but allowed Lajovic to break back at the first opportunity. And then, when the first set went to a tie-break, he was a little unlucky when a Lajovic backhand clipped the net cord at a crucial moment and flew over his racket for a winner.
Unlucky or not, Edmund’s statistics show that if you get on top of him in a five-set match, he does not come back.
This 7-6, 6-3, 7-6 defeat represented the 14th time he had gone two sets down. In all 14, he went on to lose the third set as well.
Boulter was next, but she faced the toughest opponent of the day in world No 5 Elina Svitolina. Given that she had not played a tour-level match for 11 months, because of a spinal stress fracture, Boulter’s 6-4, 7-5 defeat represented a creditable beginning.